poem 3/13

Philadelphia Night
(for Dominique & Nadia)

sweet lip gloss on the lit street-
light cascade on the dead-end tattoo storefront
once opium parlor and dug-into brick graves
by prisoners freed from above-board ships, slaves
docked in the green harbor's waves now filled
with a fresh fetid stank, lazy dipping lull-
aby old shores with old shoes, bicycle wheels,
pink plastic dolls wrapped in winter-woven
shawls, strewn: a "hush little baby don't say a word,"
fast fall to watery death - "I never meant
to push it off, just wanted to see it fly," -
and then it is quiet in the hushed, crimeless city
nights, the comfortable dine out with friends or
in with lovers or both; remember, how we used to ask,
“when will that be us?" and now it is, at last
we line the simple night's corridors, clacking in
adult shoes, cackling sugary alchy throats; in smoke,
the tinkly bells a less bold, brilliant ring
of dust above our heads in the ink, each
night leans longer, dreams of more in city time;
breathing our own breath and thousands of others’ beside us
breath the same since the days we were young
enough to be born, since the time the wind blew in
and planted us here.